Essen
5 March 1943 — Essen
- Date
- 5 March 1943
- Target
- Essen, Germany
- Force dispatched
- 442 aircraft
- Aircraft lost
- 14
Narrative
This was the night the Battle of the Ruhr opened, and it opened over the one target that had defeated Bomber Command for three years — Essen, home of the Krupp armament works, so often hidden under the industrial haze of the valley that crews had bombed it more in hope than in sight. What changed everything was Oboe. Mosquitoes of No. 109 Squadron, flying the new blind-marking aid that measured their position by radio pulses from two ground stations in England, ran in ahead of the stream and laid their target indicators squarely on the centre of the city. The five that reached the area opened the attack dead on time and marked Krupp perfectly. Behind them 442 aircraft — Lancasters, Wellingtons, Halifaxes, Stirlings and a handful of Mosquitoes — bombed for forty minutes through the marker glow. Reconnaissance afterwards showed about 160 acres of destruction and fifty-three buildings hit inside the Krupp works alone; some 3,000 houses were destroyed and around 460 people killed. Fourteen bombers failed to return, 3.2 per cent of the force. For the first time the Ruhr’s greatest factory city had been struck accurately at night, and the campaign that followed was built on what Oboe had proved possible here.
Sortie details (which aircraft from which squadron, which crew flew, the outcome) will populate this page once the TNA AIR 27 squadron-diary importer arrives.
The fallen
144 airmen in this archive died on 5 March 1943 or the day that followed. For a raid of this kind these are overwhelmingly the night's losses, though a death-date match is not by itself proof an individual flew this operation.
- Sergeant Denis William Alexander (21)
- Sergeant Eric Brandreth Alsop (34)
- Flight Sergeant Alphe Baptiste Amirault (24)
- Leading Aircraftman Thomas Geoffrey Mayou Argile (21)
- Leading Aircraftman John Ashton
- Flight Sergeant Charles Carr Atkin (27)
- Flight Sergeant Gerald Russell Avey
- Sergeant Ronald Dennis Baker (19)
- Sergeant Harry William Baldock (23)
- Flight Sergeant Roy Bartolotti (23)
- Flight Lieutenant Peter John Christopher Bateman-champain (26)
- Flight Sergeant Ernest Maxwell Bell (22)
- Flying Officer Donald Edward Bennett (28)
- Flight Sergeant Keith Charles Birdsey (31)
- Sergeant David Black (21)
- Sergeant John Hannah Black
- Flight Sergeant Arthur Edward Blackwell
- Flight Sergeant Kenneth Bolton
- Sergeant James Edward Bonson
- Flying Officer Stanley Sherwen Brand (21)
- Sergeant Douglas Stuart Bratt
- Warrant Officer Leonard William Brymer (41)
- Aircraftman 1st Class Lawrie Mayman Burford (23)
- Flying Officer Chelmsford Edward Chapman
See all 144 who died on 5 March →
Source: Wikipedia — Battle of the Ruhr →